Syria: UN Agency Delivers Supplies to Besieged Camp

New York, Feb 26 2014 -
Amid “unbelievable devastation,” the United Nations
agency charged with ensuring the well-being of Palestinian
refugees across the Middle East has today been able to
deliver life-saving supplies to families in a camp on the
outskirts of Damascus, where nearly every building is an
empty shell and the war-weary, desperate people have
suffered unparalleled deprivation.

As massive crowds lined
up with “row upon row of gaunt faces,” the UN Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
distributed 450 food parcels in the Palestinian refugee camp
of Yarmouk today, bringing to 7,493 the total number of food
parcels distributed since 18 January.

“Significantly,
the UNRWA team was permitted to work from an UNRWA facility
in Yarmouk for the first time since December 2012,” said
spokesperson Christopher Gunness, who added: “This
represents a highly encouraging step towards re-establishing
full services and humanitarian access to Yarmouk.”

The
UNRWA team received authorisation to resume food
distribution inside Yarmouk at 2 p.m. local time and
proceeded from the northern Bateekhah entrance to UNRWA’s
Tabgha School. UNRWA vehicles carried 450 parcels to the
school, where aid was distributed for about four
hours.

“Despite the presence of large crowds, the
distribution was orderly with no security incidents or
pauses,” said Mr. Gunness, who also emphasized that UNRWA
staff were permitted to manage the distribution process in
its entirety, without the involvement of third parties.

He
said that while intense humanitarian needs remain, UNRWA
welcomes this encouraging development and is assured that
expanded humanitarian access will be maintained over the
coming days. “The Agency stands ready to rapidly
re-establish services and increase humanitarian
assistance,” Mr. Gunness added.

After fighting broke out
late at night on 7 February, forcing UNRWA to temporarily
suspend its aid deliveries, the Agency has had only
intermittent access to the camp in the past two weeks. An
UNRWA food parcel feeds a family of between five and eight
for 10 days. There 18,000 Palestinians in the camp and an
unknown number of Syrians.

When partial humanitarian
access was granted on 18 January and 20 February, UNRWA had
successfully distributed 7,000 food parcels, 10,000 polio
vaccines and a range of other medical supplements to
civilians inside the camp. Prior to the armed conflict in
Syria, which began in March 2011, Yarmouk – a suburb just
south of Damascus – was home to over 160,000 Palestine
refugees.

During his visit to the camp two days ago, UNRWA
chief Filippo Grandi painted a grim picture of the situation
there, telling reporters later that “the devastation is
unbelievable. There is not one single building that I have
seen that is not an empty shell by now.”

What was even
more shocking was the state of the people inside. With much
of the camp destroyed and passageways blocked with
barricades, “the people coming from within Yarmouk appear
suddenly near [our] distribution point. It’s like the
appearance of ghosts. These are people that have not been
out, that have been trapped in there not only without food,
medicines, clean water – all the basics – but also
probably completely subjected to fear,” he said.

Since
December 2012, fighting has caused at least 140,000
Palestine refugees to flee their homes in Yarmouk, as armed
opposition groups established a presence in the area, with
Government forces controlling the periphery.

Starvation
and illnesses exacerbated by hunger or lack of medical aid
have contributed to some 100 people dying in the camp in
recent months, according to UN figures.

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